How your friends' friends can affect your mood

One of the aspects of our being inherently social is that, well, look at this: How your friends' friends can affect your mood - life - 30 December 2008 - New Scientist: "Recent research shows that our moods are far more strongly influenced by those around us than we tend to think. Not only that, we are also beholden to the moods of friends of friends, and of friends of friends of friends - people three degrees of separation away from us who we have never met, but whose disposition can pass through our social network like a virus."

Now, cutting a long story short, but something I keep banging on about, the reason is probably empathic mimicry.
"Some researchers think one of the most likely mechanisms is empathetic mimicry. Psychologists have shown that people unconsciously copy the facial expressions, manner of speech, posture, body language and other behaviours of those around them, often with remarkable speed and accuracy. This then causes them, through a kind of neural feedback, to actually experience the emotions associated with the particular behaviour they are mimicking."
My interest spiritually is recognising the corporateness of faith living both in terms of 'not giving up meeting together' but also in terms of the effects of living in faith-hostile environments. Also we should note the likelihood of certain kinds of behaviour, notably and most extremely those associated with certain kinds of revivalism, are more about empathic mimicry than about the spirit of God. That's not to say God may not be involved, but we should be wary of making it all-or-nothing. God can indeed be touching people's lives and this may show through psycho-somatic means. These may then be picked up by others. In some cases doing so may enable them to 'tune in' to some degree to the presence of God. In some cases, however, it may only transmit 'odd' mannerisms. Our bodies are sacramental, in a sense, but not ex opere operato: the behaviour does not 'produce' or necessarily connote the presence or move of God; though it may.

Of course, it is possible to go to the extreme of saying that such scientific research disproves the God stuff: it's all just a somatic-psycho-spiritual 'infection'. This is, of course, as much nonsense as saying that such things 'prove' God. We need to recall that as embodied beings, if we are to have spiritual experiences they will have to be mediated through our bodily (=neural) experience. Conversely we should note that in evolutionary terms our vocal apparatus is not 'designed' for speech, however, that does not mean that language does not really exist. Similarly, just because certain of our somatic systems can be co-opted for spiritual experience does not mean that something genuinely spiritual does not underlie that co-option.